søndag 30. desember 2012

Yesterday, December 29, was the
feastday of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed
in 1170 when four knights entered the cathedral and slew him. This
transgression caused an uproar throughout Christendom and only three
years later Thomas was canonised by Pope Alexander III. The cult of
Thomas Becket grew rapidly in popularity and soon eclipsed other
cults, including that of St Edward the Confessor, who had been
canonised only twelve years earlier in 1161 by the same pope. The
trajectories of these two cults make for an interesting comparison
because their origins are close to each other in space and time, but
also because of the many differences between them. In this blogpost I
aim to look at a few of these differences. The images are all taken from the British Library online catalogue.

Martyrdom of Thomas Becket from MS Harley 5102, first quarter of 13th century

The Canonisations

The two cults came about within the
reign of the same pope, Alexander III (1159-81). By the time of
Edward the Confessor's canonisation (1161), there was a papal schism
which divided Latin Christendom between Alexander and his rival,
antipope Victor IV, and each of the contestans vied for the loyalty
of Europe's secular princes. It was then the English clergy and King
Henry II decided to re-apply for the canonisation of Edward the
Confessor (an attempt of 1138 had fallen through on grounds of
insufficient ecclesiastical support), and the request was granted.
This was possibly due to Henry II's support of Alexander, but it may
also have been because the English clergy was now united behind this
claim and thus provided the support that had been lacking in 1138.

Edward the Confessor (d. 1066) provided
Henry II with a sainted forebear that could legitimise his own rule,
which was still a matter of contention in the 1160s. However, there
is nothing to suggest that Henry expressed any personal devotion to
Edward, he was more interested in the political aspect of the saint -
this claim is supported by the enthusiasm Henry dedicated to the
genesis of Wace's Roman de Rou. In ecclesiastical circles, however,
Edward did not achieve any wide popularity, and it was primarily at
Westminster - where the king lay buried - that any significant
devotion could be found. This can be seen clearly by the fact that
Archbishop Thomas Becket himself applied to Pope Alexander at the
Council of Tours in May 1163 for the canonisation of his predecessor
Anselm (1109) - quite possibly to counter the English monarchy's
brand new saint. Although Pope Alexander expressed sympathy for the
cause and allowed veneration, he refused to canonise the famous
archbishop and theologian. Becket's petition is suggestive of the
growing hostility between him and the king, an hostility that was to
reach new heights at the council of Westminster in October that year.
Edward's lack of wide ecclesiastical support can also be seen in the
fact that at Edward's translation, October 13 1163, only the
archdiocese of Canterbury was represented, not the archdiocese of
York.

At the time of Thomas Becket's
canonisation the papal schism was still ongoing, but the murder of an
English archbishop within the confines of a cathedral enraged both
lay and cleric, and both Becket's ecclesiastical supporters (many of
whom were French clerics who had entertained him during his exile in
the period 1164-65) and the lay populace expressed their horror. In
1173 Pope Alexander canonised Becket (without much ado, as had been
the case with the Confessor) and the following year Henry II
performed a public penance for his role in the murder. Henry was also
forced to make certain concessions to the pope regarding royal
interference in ecclesiastical matters, which had been one of
Becket's major causes. Through his martyrdom, in other words, Thomas
Becket provided the English church with exactly the kind of saintly
figurehead he had sought in Anselm seven years prior to his death.
However, although Becket remained popular even after the immediate
surge of piety had lost its momentum, he did not alter significantly
much with regards to the relationship between Church and Monarchy,
and the most significant long-term beneficial consequences are
probably the boost in the revenue of Christ Church at Canterbury,
which hosted his shrine. Nonetheless, the cult enjoyed an impressive
longevity.

Edward the Confessor with book and sceptre from MS Royal 20A II, c.1307-1327

The Textual Traditions

Another
interesting difference between Thomas Becket and Edward the Confessor
is the development of their respective textual traditions. Edward the
Confessor had been dead for nearly a century by the time he was
canonised, and because of his position as the last - or penultimate,
depending on your views - Anglo-Saxon king he was immediately revered
by the Normans in a successful attempt to legitimise their new reign.
It was the childless Confessor who had appointed William, Duke of
Normandy, as his successor - or at least that was what the Norman
historian William of Jumièges claimed already in the 1060s and
-70s. Following Edward's death, therefore, he made important
appearances in historiographical works of various kinds, the most
significant of which being Vita
Edwardi qui apud Westmonasteriam recquiescit,
a biography written to secure his widow Edith's position at the new
Norman court. This work was the chief source for Osbert of Clare,
prior at Westminster who attempted to have Edward canonised in 1138
and who wrote the first Edward hagiography to support his petition.
Although initially unsuccessful, this was the basis for Aelred of
Rievaulx's hagiography of 1163, written for Edward's translation. In
other words, at the time of Edward's canonisation there was a rich
textual tradition to glean from for the liturgical material - the
earliest of which came about sometime in the period 1161-66 - and
later histories and hagiographies.

For
Thomas Becket things were vastly different. Between his death and his
canonisation there were three years and consequently no tradition to
build from. However, the sensational character of his death - and the
fact that there were clerical eye-witnesses who could disseminate
their knowledge firsthand - resulted in an impressively swift
production of purely hagiographical material, which did not spring
from any preceding historiographical tradition. The earliest text was
the Vita sancti
Thomae
(first recension c.1171-72) of Edward Grim, the man who had attempted
to shield Becket with his arm and nearly lost it as a result. This
text was the foundation of a metrical French life authored by Guernes
de Pont-Ste-Maxence in 1172-74 and was also used by William Fitz
Stephen in the second recension of his Vita
sancti Thomae.
In addition there was a Passio
beati Thomae
in dissemination from the 12th century onwards. These texts were in
turn the foundation for the office for Thomas Becket, which came
about very quickly following his canonisation.

The most significant differences between Thomas Becket and Edward,
however, are typological, and this may in turn account for the
different degrees of successfulness the two saints could claim.
Edward was, as his sobriquet tells us, hallowed for his virtuous
life, his virginity, his peaceful reign, his mild-mannered behaviour
and his ability to heal the lame, the blind and - in one memorable
instance - the scrofulous. However, despite his commendable deeds, he
was still a rather tame saint and he paled in comparison to the
virgin martyrs who had given their life for Christ, facing an often
excessively brutal end, or in comparison to the apostolic martyrs who
had died gruesomely by the hands of heathens in their attempts to
spread the Gospel. He was also a rather tame king, for although his
reign was of a relative peace, it was rather boring compared to the
mighty men-of-arms like Charlemagne or Stephen of Hungary. In other
words, Edward fell short in two categories, and this can be seen by
the rivalry he met from the cult of a man who was listed both as a
martyr, a king and - if I remember correctly - a virgin, namely
Edmund the Martyr, 9th-century king of East Anglia. This is not to
say that the virtues and iconography of Edward rendered him
completely impotent as a saint, far from it, but as a humble and
chaste king who - reportedly - submitted to the superiority of the
Church, he was more attractive to ecclesiasticals, who found in him
the perfect model of a Christian king - this was especially the case
in the Cistercian climate of the 12th century - and who occasionally
portrayed him resembling a bishop rather than a king.

Thomas Becket, however, was a
different saint type, the martyr. As André Vauchez has pointed out
the brutal death of a contemporary will often result in a surge of
enthused piety from the populace, and this was indeed the case with
Thomas Becket. His social position, his steadfastness in a brutal
martyrdom and his network of supporters on the continent helped to
rapidly disseminate his cult, and although the Confessor had enjoyed
a certain popularity beyond England, it was little compared to that
of the martyred archbishop. Furthermore, the hagiographers of Thomas
were indignantly opposed to the king and framed the saint's
characerisation in a manner that could appeal to all Christians, and
that also gave a certain edge to the Church. Thomas Becket was
portrayed as a new man, a reformed sinner who had transformed himself
upon taking his office as archbishop in a manner reminiscent of
Paul's letter to the Ephesians. He was furthermore described as a
good shepherd, a christic image which appealed to the laity who thus
considered him a patron willing to aid them in their plights, and
also to the clergy who saw him as a stout defender of the Church.
Last, but far from least, he was of course a miracle-worker, which
was mandatory for any saint, and which is what attracts a large
following among both lay and learned. It is in these miraculous
cures, however, that we find one of the most interesting differences
between Thomas and Edward, and we can imagine that this had severe
ramification for Edward's standing - although this particular link
has not been conclusively proved.

As a miracle-worker Edward the
Confessor had been described in very christic terms: he, both while
still alive and when dead, healed the blind and the lame in the same
way that Christ had done, and this christomimesis was evidence of his
virtuous life. Thomas Becket, however, showed his virtue
posthumously, but his catalogue of cures and helps exceeded the
repertoire of Edward and included feeding the hungry and healing a
long list of diseases and ailings. In an age when medicine was
largely painful and ineffectual, and when a plethora of illnesses
were very common, this was a major point of attraction for the pious
laity.

To
sum up, then, the cults of Thomas Becket and Edward the Confessor
co-existed throughout the High Middle Ages and make for an
interesting comparison. I have here focussed on the differences, but
the matter is so complex and requires a book-length study of its own
in order to satisfy the attention demanded by the material. They were
typologically very different and their propagators approached the
mandatory christomimesis in different ways. Ultimately, however,
Thomas Becket proved most successful in that regard, as he had died
an actual martyr's death, while the first biographer of Edward the
Confessor could only vaguely suggest a Christlike end.

mandag 24. desember 2012

A second Christmas gift to all my readers: John Milton's Hymn
on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. This epic rendition of the
Christmas gospel is a celebration of the triumph of Christianity
over the pagan gods, and a poetic remodelling of one of the
most treasured and most important stories of the world.
The text is taken from bartleby.com.

søndag 23. desember 2012

The last few years I have become increasingly fond of English Christmas carols and Christmas hymns, owing no doubt in part to the exposure to English church music I had when living in England. One of my favourite hymns is God rest ye merry gentlemen, and for the occasion I would like to post one of the many versions for you to enjoy. Merry Christmas!

torsdag 20. desember 2012

I had hoped I would be able to resuscitate this blog after I had handed in the printed copies of my MA thesis in Mid-November, that I could finally take some time off academic work and that I could finally write all those pieces I've had planned for months. As it turned out, I did manage to take time off academic work, but unfortunately, my mind counted even blogposts academic work and refused to take part in it, descending into ennui, which prohibited anything resembling what I'd been doing the past few months. Even completing Robertson Davies' excellent novel The Rebel Angels took longer than I had expected, and although it was a splendid read I had to summon more willpower to complete it than normally would be the case. Completing my MA thesis had, in other words, drained me of more energy than I could possibly have foreseen back in August, when everything seemed to be coming to a close very neatly and swiftly, and when I still considered my Latin courses to be a pleasant diversion from editing my own texts.

By October reality came gradually creeping up on me and suddenly smacked me in the face with the numerous rounds of editing I had to undertake, joined of course by the still-unwritten chapter 1 which in turn very soon took on massive proportions. As a consequence I was editing my text almost right up to the very end, and Tuesday November 13 I counted myself done and decided to send in the text. However, before I could do so I had to go a few rounds with the pdf document as well, making sure that the pages were in the right place, that the chapters and the five appendices all began on the recto side and that the list of content corresponded with reality - which took a while to persuade it to do. Finally, everything was shipped off and I could afford myself one day of much-needed rest while waiting for the thesis to be printed on Thursday. It was a joy past all the care in the world - to paraphrase Geoffrey Hill - to carry a box containing copies of my thesis to the cubicle and to dole out signed copies to friends and fellow-students.

The following weekend was a busy one and I went out with friends every night from Friday to Tuesday, and I believe this, too, drained me more than I had anticipated. The week following the completion of my thesis, I was supposed to start refreshing my Latin and prepare for two exams at the end of the term. I also meant to prepare for the thesis defence sometime in Mid-December, and I had some great plans for how that should be done. Unfortunately, I managed nothing more than to sit in my flat for days - only occasionally venturing off to see other people - and watch tv series and read comics. I was completely void of any will to get things done and all the prospects I had planned sifted away into a state of suspended action. This sensation was so overpowering that even after I had learned the date for my defence - December 13 - it took me several days before I even began to try reading through my thesis, and even that cost me more strength than I would at first have believed.

On the day of the defence I spent more of that energy I didn't really have on sheer dread and anxiety. I woke up at about five in the morning after what I suspect was nothing more than two hours of sleep, and at about 10 a.m. I went down to campus to hang out with my friends, feeling very well the weight of five and a half years of work resting heavily on my shoulders and pecking at my skull. At that point four of my closest friends had already defended their theses - two graduating in history, two in art history - and they had all achieved great results. On my day of trial I was not alone as I had two friends who were defending before me, and as the moment of truth came closer, soo too came the realisation that the bar was set really high. 12 a.m. - one hour before my friends were defending - their grades were put up, and again the results were very good, adding, of course, to the pressure upon my shoulders. It was therefore a very long journey from the cubicle to the department at 1 p.m. when my grade was to be put up, and when I came in precisely on time it turned out I had come too early: the grade was not yet put up. Consequently I had to go back to my cubicle and undertake the journey once more. When I finally saw the grade, however, the weight of my world dispersed rather quickly as it turned out I could be very happy with my grade and the following hour passed in far less agony than the almost eight hours preceding it.

When the defence was done and five and half years' worth of academic labours had come to a close, I felt so very relieved and so very much on top of the world that I could hardly contain my joy. Unfortunately, that joy and the anxiety and fear leading up to that joy, drained my resources even further, and I was completely unable to care about my Latin exams of the week following, and I completed two of the worst exams I have ever conducted in my time at the University.

Now, however, I have returned home for the Christmas holidays and I can finally relax. I hope this will give me strength enough to resume my academic writing and my blogging, but I do fear also this month will be dedicated to brief pieces and self-promoting poetry.

Om meg

Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, lover of art, music and food. This blog is a mixture of things personal and scholarly and it serves as a venue for me to share things I find interesting with likeminded people.